Phantasiestücke Op 73 (1849)

Zart und mit Ausdruck –

Lebhaft, leicht –

Rasch und mit Feuer

The Dresden clarinettist Johann Kotte, for whom Schumann wrote the Phantasiestücke Op.73, must have been an unusualy sympathetic and sensitive musician. Certainly, the composer entrusted him here with the intimately confiding sort of music he usually reserved for his most personal piano music. The first movement begins with a tender expression of nostalgia in A minor and ends as if by chance in a radiant A major – a key which is gratefully adopted, without pausing, by the gentle scherzo that follows. The last of these “fantasy pieces” is the most extended of the three, not least because it has an important, if discreet, structural function to perform integrating the main themes of the previous movement with material of its own.

Zart und mit Ausdruck -

Lebhaft, leicht -

Rasch und mit Feuer

Although the Schumanns were never fully integrated into Dresden musical life during the five or six years they spent in that city, they did form some valuable friendships. Clara enjoyed playing chamber music with instrumentalists from the Dresden Court Orchestra and Robert took no less pleasure in composing pieces for them. The Phantasiestücke Op 73 was the first of four works for wind or string instruments and piano written with the same convivial purpose in mind in 1849.

Johann Kotte, the Court Orchestra clarinettist, must have been a most sympathetic and sensitive instrumentalist. Certainly, Schumann entrusted him here with the confidingly intimate sort of music he usually reserved for Clara herself. The first movement begins with a tender expression of nostalgia in A minor and, after a central development and a modestly literal reprise, ends as if by chance in a radiant A major. Following without a break, the second movement is a scherzo most effectively written for clarinet with a characteristic wide-spaced melody in the outer sections and no less characteristic chromatic figuration in the middle. The last movement is the most extended of the three partly because it contains a middle section which is itself a small-scale ternary construction and partly because it has an important, if discreet, structural function to perform. It not only integrates the tender melody of the first movement with its own brilliant main theme in the opening section but also recalls the scherzo material at the beginning of an ultimately jubilant coda.

Zart und mit Ausdruck -

Lebhaft, leicht -

Rasch und mit Feuer

Although there is a work for cello and piano among the duos Schumann wrote for principals of the Court Orchestra in Dresden in 1849 – “all the instruments are having a turn,” Clara wrote in her diary at the time – it is not the Phantasiestücke Op.73. That score was written in the first place for the clarinettist Johann Kotte, who gave the first performance with Clara soon after it was written. When it was published, however, it was issued with alternative versions for violin or cello.

Kotte must have been a most sympathetic and sensitive musician. Certainly, Schumann entrusted him in these Phantasiestücke with the confiding sort of music he usually reserved for Clara herself. The first movement begins with a tender expression of nostalgia in A minor and, after a central development and a modestly literal reprise, it ends as if by chance in a radiant A major. Following without a break, the second movement is a gentle scherzo in A major. If the bubbling chromatic figuration in the middle section is more characteristic of the clarinet than the cello, there is nothing to choose between the two instruments as far as the tenderly playful material of the outer sections is concerned.

The last movement is the most extended of the three partly because it contains a middle section which is itself a small-scale ternary construction and partly because it has an important, if discreet, structural function to perform. It not only integrates the tender melody of the first movement with its own brilliant main theme in the opening section but also recalls the scherzo material at the beginning of an ultimately jubilant coda.

Zart und mit Ausdruck -

Lebhaft, leicht -

Rasch und mit Feuer

Although the Schumanns were never fully integrated into Dresden musical life during the five or six years they spent in that city – the 1849 revolution was only the most serious of several distractions – they did form some valuable friendships. Clara enjoyed playing chamber music with instrumentalists from the Dresden Court Orchestra and Robert enjoyed composing pieces for them. The Phantasiestücke Op 73 for clarinet and piano, the Adagio and Allegro Op 70 for horn and piano, the Drei Romanzen Op 94 for oboe and piano, the Fünf Stücke im Volkston Op 102 for cello and piano were all written with the same convivial purpose in mind. “All the instruments are having a turn,” Clara wrote in her diary early in 1849.

The earliest of these pieces, the three Phantasiestücke, were completed on 12 February 1849 and tried out six days later by Clara with the Court Orchestra clarinettist Johann Kotte. He must have been a most sympathetic and sensitive instrumentalist. Certainly, Schumann entrusted him here with the confidingly intimate sort of music he usually reserved for Clara herself. The first movement begins with a tender expression of nostalgia in A minor and, after a central development and a modestly literal reprise, briefly leads the harmonies astray into D minor and then, as if by chance, into A major in the closing bars. Following without a break in A major, the second movement is a scherzo most effectively written for clarinet with a characteristic wide-spaced melody in the outer sections and no less characteristic chromatic figuration in the middle. The last movement is the most extended of the three partly because it contains a middle section which is itself a small-scale ternary construction and partly because it has an important, if discreet, structural function to perform. It not only integrates the tender melody of the first movement with its own brilliant main theme in the opening section but also recalls the scherzo material at the beginning of a coda that gets quicker and quicker as it approaches the jubilant A major ending.

Zart und mit Ausdruck -

Lebhaft, leicht -

Rasch und mit Feuer

Although there is a work for cello and piano among the duos Schumann wrote for principals of the Court Orchestra in Dresden in 1849 - “all the instruments are having a turn,” Clara wrote in her diary at the time - it is not the Phantasiestücke Op.73. That score was written in the first place for the clarinettist Johann Kotte, who gave the first performance with Clara soon after it was written. When it was published, however, it was issued with alternative versions for violin or cello, just as the Fünf Stücke im Volkston for cello Op.102 was published with an alternative version for violin.

Kotte must have been a most sympathetic and sensitive musician. Certainly, Schumann entrusted him in these Phantasiestücke with the confiding sort of music he usually reserved for Clara herself. Even so, as the composer was clearly aware, the lyrical voice of the cello is scarcely less appropriate to the intimate circumstances. The first movement, with its brooding expression of nostalgia in A minor at the beginning and its spontaneously achieved ending in A major, could easily have been written for cello and piano in the first place. Following without a break, the second movement is a gentle scherzo in A major. If the bubbling chromatic figuration in the middle section is more characteristic of the clarinet than the cello, there is nothing to choose between the two instruments as far as the tenderly playful material of the outer sections is concerned.

The last movement is the most extended of the three partly because it contains a middle section which is itself a small-scale ternary construction and partly because it has an important, if discreet, structural function to perform. It not only integrates the nostalgic melody of the first movement with its own brilliant main theme in the opening section but also recalls the scherzo material at the beginning of a coda that gets quicker and quicker as it approaches the jubilant A major ending.